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Protesters again call for Kaliňák to resign

Around 2,000 people gathered at SNP Square in Bratislava on June 27 to call on Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák to resign for allegedly covering up tax frauds involving businessman Ladislav Bašternák. The protest was organised by the two strongest opposition parties Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) and OĽaNO-NOVA. This was the second demonstration of what OĽaNO-NOVA head Igor Matovič last week announced would be a series of weekly protests set to take place for the next six months – if Kaliňák stays in office.

The first protest last week was staged in front of Prime Minister Robert Fico’s private flat in the Bonaparte residential complex – also belonging to Bašternák, who has not been heard from for several weeks.

Politicians appearing on the platform on SNP Square described corruption as the most troubling problem of Slovakia today.

“It reaches the top echelons,” said SaS chairman Richard Sulik as cited by the TASR newswire.

The demonstrators several times called on Kaliňák to resign and be put in jail, and also expressed their displeasure with Fico. After about an hour on SNP Square, the crowd moved towards the Bonaparte complex.

A parliamentary no-confidence motion in Kaliňák is scheduled for Thursday. He survived one on the same matter earlier this month, but the opposition has garnered sufficient new material for another petition to oblige Speaker of Parliament Andrej Danko to call parliament back for another vote.

After the Agriculture Ministry lifted its embargo, it turned out that the companies of Italians suspected of ties with ’Ndrangheta received subsidies worth millions of euros, through the Agricultural Paying Agency.